The Catfish Fillets in Tomato Cream Sauce Fishing Report...

We had planned a camping trip to Hanks Creek on Lake Sam Rayburn and had two great sites booked. One was for us and the other was for the Zamora's in the VW camper. The forecast started looking iffy so we decided to cancel. It ended up a steady rain all night Friday. Me and Cathy would have just snuggled in the Rpod and wore nice rain gear but everything in the boat would have been soaked and the grandkids, being a little closer to the ground would have been wet and cold. All our great plans turned into a lake trip just us.

The cold front blew out the rain but left north winds, clear skies and high barometric pressure. Fish don't like those conditions but we managed 12 keepers and threw back a bucket full of ridiculously small fish that some how took the hook. Cathy had big fish with this blue cat.  

It was brisk on the lake but not too windy to be dangerous. Water was 57 degrees and I did not check the air temps but Cathy looks all puffed up like the young mocking bird I see perched on the porch on cool mornings with his feathers puffed up like a down jacket.   

The lake is very low with lots of stumps to hit if you are cruising outside of boat lanes or river channels. Low water can be good for catfish as you can find those spots with tie ups right where the drop offs are which makes for good fishing. We were trying to find an old spot that Cathy named "the elevens" because two stumps close together looked like the number eleven. The last recorded sighting I can find where the lake was low enough to find the elevens was 2010. on review of the photo I don't believe this is it but I marked it with the GPS anyway.   

On the return home we maximized our catch by cleaning a couple of fish whole and saving the backbones for some old school frying later, filleting several small fish for some hunks to put in a courtbullion (kubeyon) soup and with the big fillets I whipped up this tomato cream sauce over baked squash and noodles. That's a potato salad I made for a side and I invented a Creole tarter/remoulade/pink sauce with mayo, ketchup and mustard that looks like it might become a mainstay around here. 

Ingredients in this dish are nothing special. I could probably cook it or something like it in any family kitchen that has basic vegetables, spices, butter, oil and a couple of versatile cooking pans. There was a suggestion last night that I write a cook book and call it, for the sake of keeping this page family friendly "Sh## In The Kitchen."    

We will be making the catfish count for the year in a few weeks and I know this is a low year but that's a stage of outdoorism when you make the transition from quantity to quality.